Sometimes it all seems to come down to the question of survival–and learning to live with loss. Rock and blues have lost a lot of people in the past five years, but the death of an artist always diminishes the music more than the death of a "star"–and Duane Allman was an artist. He lived for and in music, loving it with the kind of possessed passion that sometimes leads people to believe that bluesmen have traded their souls to the Devil for the magic of their music.
When Duane was killed in a motorcycle accident last fall, the other five group members went off in separate directions for a few weeks–but they soon found themselves calling each other up, wanting to get together
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and jam. Most voids ache to be filled, and music can fill many because it can contain so much; sorrow, celebration, anger, love–and always the joy of just plain getting it on. So soon the five-man Allman Brothers began to play again–what else
could they do?
One of their first gigs after the tragedy was Thanksgiving night at Carnegie Hall. The trademark dual guitar harmonies and inter-play were missing–but the band still boogied hard, strong and soaring. It was as if each of the five had expanded some to fill the empty space, and a different kind of internal structure started to grow. Dicky Betts guitar smoked for sure, prodded by Berry Oakley's driving bass it drove into new regions. Since then the band has grown even tighter. "The brother spirit is there," Berry says. "And the bond is really strong." Work had begun on their fourth album, and three tracks were completed with Duane before the accident. According to Dicky, the original idea was an album with a "light, airy, free kind of feel" to go along with the title, Eat a Peach (Capricorn ZCP 0102). The music on this double album is drawn from three different sources; live tracks from Fillmore East (most cut at the same gig that resulted in the earlier live album), studio sessions done with Duane last fall, and one whole side from the "new" band, recorded in mid-January.
Chronologically, the album really begins with Side Two, "Mountain Jam." (You can hear its opening notes on the fadeout of "Whipping Post," the last track on the last side of Live at Fillmore East.) The instrumental jam is based on Donovan's "First There Is A Mountain," but soon leaves it to stretch off into more expansively soaring riffs–always anchored in solid rock, but also swirling smooth in clouds of jazz-like improvisation. Everybody gets some good rides flowing, taking themes and circling them from inside out; Dicky Betts walks some jagged edges while Berry cooks and bubbles below, joined by Duane who puts an encouraging aura around Dicky's urgency. And typically, the whole band merges into one organism, one master musician with 30 fingers and six instruments to play on. The side ends with a pulsing drum riff by drummers Butch Trucks and Jai Johann Johanson followed by
This was the band's tribute to Duane Allman, who died less than a year before its release. Listening to him scale the fret board on the 33-minute long "Mountain Jam" is almost an album unto itself. And of course the sweeping "Melissa" and bouncy strut of "One Way Out" also helped make this album a tried and true classic.
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